GATEBIL - The Guide

[Damien]

Seeing as every year the same questions seem to come up, and there never seems to be a full list of answers, here's my take on GATEBIL, which will hopefully help get a proper Irish Crowd out for a party next year.

So to Start - Getting there.

I flew From Dublin to Oslo -Rygge Airport, for the fine sum of €101.00 return. Coming from Cork I got the Aircoach at 1am in Cork to be In Dublin for a 6:30 flight. Unless your under 5ft I wouldnt the bus again, so much for sleeping in the bus packed full of LOUD Spanish Students.

Rygge was about 45 mins from Rudskogen by car but I saw plenty of Taxi's and Bus stops along the way so I'm sure that's an option too.
At 22 I manged to hire a car with no extra age surcharge, and ended up with this fine Eco beast,


DSC_0726 by Damien671, on Flickr


It made a fine Hotel too, within walking distance of the Party and located beside Hotel BM.



Now Norway was expensive and at 30 Kr about €3.80 for a bottle of water you get an idea of how expensive a thirst was over there.

Gatebil - Tickets

A Day ticket is about €30 each, while I paid about €90 for a ticket for Saturday, the Afterparty and Sunday. Parking for the day was about e6, but after seeing cars parked Everywhere I think that's not a complete necessity, but I did'nt chance it for fear of having the Hire car rolled into ditch I'd be parked beside.

Having looked at the security around the place and the barriers up I'd say you could easily talk your way in without paying a bob, or walk through the forest.

As soon as we turned into the Rudskogen Entrance we could see the madness,


Then It got a wash

Gatebil by Damien671, on Flickr

Ill finish off this post tomorrow, as I've just gone through about 500 photos of over 100 and I need some sleep.

[Damien]

The Track is basically in the Middle of a Forest with the campsites spread in small open areas all around the track, and then connected with small roads. After a good 30 mins of walking and not even seeing half the campsite I could see why there were so many people with a Motorbike or quad outside their tent.




Though somebody seemed to get sick of walking pretty quickly and decided to go for a cruise.
Practicing your chat up lines or asking which way to the track Dave?



I don’t think anybody was too impressed though, as it didn’t really match up to the Suited up R8 man.


The owner of this was the biggest poser I’ve ever seen, didn’t see him near the track, but he still had the full Sparco overalls on.

The campsite was complete mayhem, and while some of the teams in the paddock had their own Campers, out in the campsite the thing to have was an old Bus, a pool, and a track car.




The Track was absolutely nonstop all day, with a mix of drift and grip spaced out with a few exotic cars in between, though really a 1400hp R32 Gtr seemed more appealing than a 911





Black Smoke Racing before the engine went Bang.


D-Mac Decided to Form Blue Smoke Racing






Then there were the Gatebil drift Taxi’s, I’d hoped to get a spin in one of these, but unfortunately they were all booked out almost immediately.



It Didnt help that one of them was out of action early on either.

[Damien]

Off track there were a heap of cool cars, most of which were parked around the cart track, though a few were around the paddock, or being used to get around the track.
















When It comes to the party, I really can’t describe the madness, either around the campsite or at the after party stage.
During the day you had plenty of this,

Untitled by Damien671, on Flickr

Gatebil by Damien671, on Flickr
As well as the general local talent on show,




R by Damien671, on Flickr

That’s as much as I photographed during the day, the rest I was just admiring.

While on stage,
It descended into pure madness, Pole Dancers, and the Gatebil babe of the Year. You just have to witness it.

The party went on all night, and with only a few hours of darkness it felt like there was no night time.



Some of the cars on track were just pure power. The S4 Quattro was just outrageous with the backward entries, while in the Time attack race the KRB esprit and the S3 were flat out.




Overall the place was Just Awesome, if you got sick of looking at the track you could always find something new in the paddock, and everybody just wanted to talk about their cars. If I took a drink from every Norwegian that offered me one in the campsite I’d never have made it home.

I only managed to get one day at the show, as I flew over Saturday morning, and came back Sunday, but I could have easily spent another day there before seeing everything.
It cost me about €250, to get to the show, between entry ticket, car hire and Flights, that was with two of us sharing the car.
Then add to that your food and drink, which was expensive. At €3.50 for a regular bottle of coke you get an idea of how expensive things can be over there, and your accommodation depending on where your staying, camping hotel, or car..

If you haven’t been then you really have to go at least once, just to experience it.



The Cleanest Cam I ever did see,

Taking Mr Larry Chen for a spin. Expect a full feature soon I'd say.











Well that's as good as I can describe GATEBIL, but you really have to live it, I have a heap of Videos too, but they don't capture the speed or sheer size of the place at all.

[-BigDave-]

Looks pretty damn cool in fairness! I was at Awesomefest in the UK a couple of years ago and it was good enough but this looks waaaaaay better! Looking forward to seeing the rest of the pics.

[grange]

the head on hugo in the scooby haha. looks like you had fun

[Chuck_g]

So in total how much did it cost doing it that way??

I need to go next year or my penis will fall off.